Buy Israeli
In response to Yishai Fleisher’s article “Ben Shapiro and the Non-Binary ‘Aliyah’ Option” (July 27), Mr. Fleisher’s simple advice, “Commit to drinking Israeli wine on Friday night – it’s a great way to make a stronger connection and to not only support Israel but to have Israel inside your body and soul,” resonates strongly with our organization, ACHI – American Communities Helping Israel. Founded in 2004 after the Second Intifada, ACHI educates and encourages everyone to “Think Israel, Buy Israel,” in order to keep the morale and economy of Israel as a top priority in the hearts and minds of those of us in the Diaspora.
To that end, ACHI developed www.achi613.org, which hosts the ACHI Market – over 100 Israeli merchants whose wares can be bought and shipped internationally and within Israel itself. ACHI is also launching the Year of ‘the KLEE’ in conjunction with the 75th anniversary of the State of Israel. A klee is a designated vessel to hold products from Israel, another way to show our love and commitment to the Jewish state. The ease and ability to buy an unlimited variety of Israeli products, both for our homes and as gifts, affords all of us the unique and necessary opportunity to make our relationship with our land and our people viable and steadfast.
Dr. Lynda Zentman
Representative
[email protected]
The Right Kind of President
Regarding the letter by Josh Rosenthal (August 5), the hatred for Donald Trump is so great that it clouds the thinking of otherwise reasonable people. So, while everyone who voted for Biden is overjoyed that Trump is out, and happy with President Biden, I watch the country that I love going downhill in the rush to obliterate all the great things Trump accomplished.
Who wants a president who tried to make America great again? Who wants a president who was building a wall to keep criminals from overtaking our country? Who wants a president who made us energy self-sufficient? Who wants a president who cared enough about Israel to move the embassy to Jerusalem and brought about the Abraham Accords and so much more? I do and hopefully many, many, more feel the same way.
Meanwhile, it is clear to me that the main purpose of the Congressional hearings is not to seek the truth but to prevent Trump from ever becoming president again. May they not succeed.
Nina Cohen
Via email
In Defense of Maimonides Hospital
Maimonides is a world-class hospital giving great treatment in a kosher environment to one of the oldest populations in America; at the same time, it has the busiest OB/GYN departments in New York State if not the country. (“Community Hospital on Steroids,” July 29.)
I have been a patient there under both Dr. Shani and most recently Dr. Frankel. I can honestly state that, with their G-d-given skills they saved my life.
They, like all doctors, study for years and do not earn salaries commensurate with their education, training and skills. They start earning in their late 30s or 40s depending, on their specialty. Hospitals are struggling because Medicaid and Medicare do not even cover the actual costs for many procedures, and because of the never-ending flood of uninsured undocumented people for whom the hospital may not get reimbursed at all. Doctors don’t get overtime or extra compensation for hours on the phone with relatives explaining situations or even preparations for new procedures. Don’t blame the problems of Maimonides on a group of individuals. Most hospitals nationwide are starved by governmental health plans who then encourage private carriers to do the same. Our hospitals, including Maimonides, give their all for every patient without guarantee of payment and without age limitations. As for nursing care, in the units I have been seen as a patient, the care was warm, caring and excellent. Some nurses, like all professionals, are better in one way or another than other nurses, but as a group they were excellent.
Is there a shortage of nurses? Yes. Partially because of financial realities caused by low reimbursement by insurance carriers, because of patients who have no coverage at all, and nurses who left to be contract nurses at hugely inflated salaries during the height of Covid.
The financial mismanagement is by our elected officials who keep cutting payments to hospitals through governmental programs setting the way private companies compensate. You can’t lose money on treatments and make it up by volume. Stop blaming the hospitals for our legislative, both local and federal, failures. Every hospital is suffering and lives on private donations or grants to supplement income.
Let the government stop requiring so many ridiculous non-productive and useless statistics and forms that require employing huge amounts of staff. This money could be better purposed for patient care.
More importantly, stop denigrating a caring, effective and excellent hospital. Instead, help them and all hospitals shore up any weak areas they may have. We, especially in New York, are blessed to have hospitals such as these.
Samuel Mark
West Hempstead, N.Y.
Senate Subterfuge
Few likely have heard of it, but Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), has just set a new sickening standard for Senate subterfuge. After Republicans had helped preliminarily pass the Veterans Burn Pit bill, he slyly slipped in a provision authorizing an extra $400 billion of unspecified, unrelated spending. Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) offered an amendment, stripping that provision from the bill. which Schumer then refused. That left Republicans with an unpalatable choice between caving to more Democrat budget-busting blowouts and rejecting a popular measure aimed at aiding sick veterans. They chose the latter, eliciting a storm of enraged criticism, most prominently from Jon Stewart. Though clearly unaware of the surrounding circumstances, his impassioned tirade may well be repeatedly recycled in fall Democrat political ads.
With a record of colossal domestic and international failure, the Democrats have nothing to run on except abortion, gun control and flashpoints such as this, with which to demonize Republicans. Which is not to say that Republicans are beyond such nefarious tactics. But Democrats are now totally in charge of Washington. They have to answer for hyperinflation at home and ignominious retreat abroad. Their attempt to misuse “reconciliation” to unilaterally pass sweeping omnibus bills has totally crushed the Capitol’s comity culture. Despite retained quaint Senatorial verbal courtesies, it’s clear that the two parties now hold each other in minimum “high regard.” It’s been said that an electorate deserves the leaders they get. Still, despite their faults, the American people surely deserve much better than this.
Richard D. Wilkins
Syracuse, N.Y.
Woke Social Experiments and Crime
Crime rates are up…. Recently a shoplifter in New York City had been arrested 129 times, released, and never brought to trial as a result of the New York State No Bail Law. In addition, there was an attempted assassination of Congressman Lee Zeldin. The assassin was arrested and then released with no bail. The congressman, who is running for governor of New York, was not seriously hurt. (Fortunately, the assassin was rearrested the next day by federal authorities.) Furthermore, a study of murders in Baltimore noted that since the year 2015 more than half the murderers there had been released from prison early. Had they remained in prison, the murders would not have taken place.
Clearly, these liberal social experiments have failed. People are dead, relatives are grieving, neighborhoods are unsafe, and people are afraid to leave their homes even during the day. If lives matter and security is desired, laws must be changed. The woke Democratic lawmakers who enacted these laws based on wishful thinking must be removed and replaced by people who understand the havoc brought on by the woke Democrats. Policies that worked in the past should be reinstituted. Let’s bring back rules that work, including prisons that keep people who do great harm off the street and locked up.
Charles Winfield
Princeton, N.J.
Yes, It Can Happen Again
Thinking about the threats Russia has made against Israel by sending its S-300 air defense system to Syria, and now the decision to shut down the Jewish Agency’s operations on its territory… My students ask me, “Can the Holocaust happen again?” My answer is a definite yes. A number of atomic bombs thrown at Israel by its enemies would annihilate the Israeli population. One is naïve to believe that antisemitism does not exist throughout the world. If we have learned anything from the Shoah, it is that it is possible for a madman to arise who wants to annihilate the Jewish people. Never fool yourself into believing that you are safe anywhere. We must always be alert and fight against prejudice wherever it may exist.
Rabbi Dr. Bernhard Rosenberg
Via email
Correction
I write to correct an error in my article, “The Four Seminal Jewish Events in the Life of Camille Pissarro” (August 5), where I wrote that Pissarro left half his estate to the Hebrew Congregation Synagogue of St. Thomas and half to St. Thomas’ Protestant Church. In fact, that bequest was by his father, Frederic.
Saul Jay Singer
Via email
